The present invention relates generally to the field of shoe constructions, and more particularly, is directed to an athletic type shoe including an elasticized blucher overlay.
It is usual practice to design and fabricate many types of shoes including athletic shoes such as sneakers, jogging shoes, tennis shoes, etc. with leather or rubber soles and leather or leather simulated plastic uppers of conventional configuration. Many prior art athletic and other shoe designs utilize a blucher construction having an associated tongue and an eyelet lacing system.
The presently available athletic shoes usually include a resilient sole of various configurations for impact relief purposes and many such shoes have additionally been padded in efforts to provide increased protection for the feet of the wearer. However, so far as is known to the applicant, all prior art athletic type shoes incorporate materials of construction having relatively little resiliency or "give" about the wearer's foot. Accordingly, all squeezing pressures resulting from lacing the shoe are constantly applied without regard to the activity, the bending or the position of the foot. When it is desired to increase or decrease the tightness of the shoe about the foot, it is now necessary to manually adjust the tension of the laces. There is presently no known method for providing automatic tensioning adjustment or automatic support variation of the shoe relative to the wearer's foot.